


Someone's Gotta Play a Role

by MegumitheGreat



Series: Shameless Mitchentine what-ifs, inserts, and fixes [3]
Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Confrontation, F/M, One Shot, Self-Indulgent, What-If, one shot series, reference to season 2, scene insert, season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 17:29:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20231650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MegumitheGreat/pseuds/MegumitheGreat
Summary: Clementine and AJ await what the Ericson kids decide what to do with them, but Clementine must speak with Mitch.  She remembers something that a friend from long ago once said.





	Someone's Gotta Play a Role

**Author's Note:**

> So when I finished Season 2 Episode 1, Pete(r) said that line when telling Clem about Nick's first time hunting and what happened when he shot the deer. It's probably not as congruent as I think, but I think it would've been neat to reference that line even if it was eight years prior to Season 4. I thought it was a pivotal line, and if Clementine had even mentioned it to herself that "someone's gotta a role to play", maybe it could have happened like this. But I suppose it would have ruined what happens in Season 4.

Marlon’s blood was on her hands. She hadn’t pulled the trigger, but she began to wonder if she had been raising the boy right. Violet had ordered them to return to the dorm; she couldn’t get it out of her head. The anger in Mitch’s eyes—those pretty green eyes—and the fear in his voice. Everyone was trying to protect each other. Marlon’s death was an accident. Or was it? He had been a threat, sure, and AJ acted to defend her. But he dropped his weapon. He had surrendered. He was no longer a threat.

Clementine had taught AJ to always aim for the head, and she was proud that he was such a good shot. If things had gone differently, or if it was someone else that wasn’t their leader and friend. She wanted to try talking to Mitch again. Louis was a lost cause, and Violet was trying to mediate the situation as best as she could. Mitch…was going to be a tough one to crack.

“AJ, can you stay here for a minute?” Clementine asked.

“Why?” AJ shot back.

“I just want to go talk to Mitch. I know he’s still angry about what happened, but maybe I can explain it to him now that everyone’s calmed down.”

“What if he pulls a knife on you again!?”

“He’s not going to. And even if he does, I can take it from him.”

AJ insisted on following her, but if Louis and Violet found both of them missing, she knew things would just get worse. She left the room quietly, telling the boy that if Violet and Louis came to the room before she was finished talking to Mitch, he was to tell them that she had simply gone to the bathroom.

She walked down the halls of the school building. Down the stairs and to the closed doors of the piano room. She heard the kids arguing why Clementine should leave and why she should stay. Someone mentioned that she was smart and could fight. Another said that she and AJ were psychopaths.

“Fuck, I’m going to get some air,” Mitch’s voice came.

“Mitch, don’t you dare leave,” Violet’s voice ordered him.

“Or what? You’re going to shoot me in the head like AJ did to Marlon? Everyone knows where your priorities lie, Vi. Don’t have to pretend—you’re just looking for a replacement.”

“Mitch, that’s an awful thing to say!” Ruby’s voice cried out.

“You know it’s true!”

“Guys, this isn’t about any of that,” Aasim sighed. “Mitch, go take a walk. Everyone needs to cool down again.”

Mitch pushed open the doors so hard that the doorknobs hit the walls. Clementine hid by the stairs leading up. She watched the angry boy stomp outside with his clenched fists. Unsure if it was a smart idea to confront him and try to explain herself and AJ’s actions to him, she stayed put. She listened to the others talk.

“He didn’t mean it,” Tenn told Violet. “He’s just really angry and really sad, and he doesn’t know what to do about it.”

“That doesn’t make what he said any better!” Violet snapped back. She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Tennessee. I really loved Minnie. I’m not trying to replace her. I couldn’t even if I tried.”

Clementine saw this as her chance to go talk to Mitch. They were all still occupied. She snuck out of the building to find him standing over Marlon’s corpse. He was visibly sad, and she knew he had every right to be. The only good thing to come out of all this was that at least he wouldn’t come back as a walker.

“Um…Mitch…?” she cautiously said to him.

Mitch turned to face her, the sorrow morphing into seething rage. If they didn’t have rules against killing people—which AJ had already broken and at this point it would have been an eye for an eye—he would have killed her. He just clenched his fists again.

“The _fuck_ do you want?” he growled at her.

“Easy. I just want…to talk.” Clementine came down the steps to close the distance between them. “Can we talk?”

“So you can spout the same bullshit you did last night? Uh-uh, no fucking way. Better get back to your room, Clem, before I do something I’ll regret.”

“I just want you to listen to what I have to say without all the anger. Come on, Mitch. Didn’t we have fun? When we played that prank on Louis? We got along.”

“What the hell are you trying to do? You’re not getting your way.”

“I just want you to calm down. You all are deciding what to do. AJ and I won’t get a say, and that’s fair. We did something bad. We lost that right. But Mitch, just listen to me for one second.”

Mitch glared her. Unfortunately, he still had something of a soft spot even after all that had happened. He had been trying desperately to get rid of it. He repeated to himself that she would endanger Willy. He loved Willy more than anyone, and he would die trying to protect him. If it meant he had to cut her out to do that, he didn’t care.

“I…I want to tell you something that a friend told me once,” she said.

“Oh, so you had friends before, huh? You get them killed, too?” Mitch spat.

It was a friend that had ultimately perished trying to save Clementine, so the insult stung more than he knew. “Pete was a good man who loved his nephew no matter what. He believed me when others didn’t, and if only I had gotten to him sooner, maybe he wouldn’t have gotten bit.” She recounted the story the hunter had told her about his nephew. He had thought that Nick hated him when she was sure that wasn’t true. “He said that ‘sometimes, you have to play a role, even if it means the ones you love hate you for it’.”

Mitch frowned at her. He just grew angrier and angrier. In his mind, Clementine was just saying that that was what had to be done. Things were okay before she got there, and as much as he didn’t want to admit that he had fun with her, he couldn’t stand that she was patronizing him now.

“How can you say that?” he hissed. He took a step to her, Clementine unwavering. “Marlon was our friend. He may have been doing shitty stuff, but he didn’t have to die! You, Clem? You’re just an outsider. You’re not changing my mind; you’re a danger to all of us, and I sure as hell am not letting you near Willy.”

Clementine raised her hands. “I-I’m not trying to change your mind,” she told him. “I just wanted you to hear that. I’ll leave with AJ if that’s what everyone wants.”

“Then why don’t you leave now? Save us the trouble?”

Mitch was done talking with her. He pushed her aside as he went back to finish the meeting with his peers. She had nothing left to do than to return her room and receive the verdict.

**Author's Note:**

> Not going to lie, anytime anyone dies in any of the seasons, I really can't help but feel that it's because Clementine (or Javier) was there. But the stories are mostly Wrong Place, Wrong Time deals. Marlon's death was a product of that and AJ not yet understanding there's a time and place for things.


End file.
